The Phil-Harmonic Podcast Episode 42

Hello all,

A few things you’ll notice this week. Firstly, the podcast is landing a couple of days earlier than normally scheduled, crashing into your lives, somewhat oddly, on a Thursday evening. That is simply because I have a big, and long overdue, clubbing session coming up this weekend, as I make my first ever trip over to Manchester’s newly reopened Warehouse Project to see Armin Van Buuren, Paul Van Dyk and Markus Schulz. A busy weekend of travelling, drinking, eating and, of course, shape-throwing planned. Really looking forward to it – as I say, it’s long overdue.

The second thing you may notice is that this week’s episode is quite long. I think I’m right in saying it’s the longest ‘regular’ episode I've ever done. I've been trying a lot of late to squeeze in 22 tracks and it’s often led to me running well over my 2 hour marker. So, a real bumper episode for you here.

What kind of episode is it?

Well, obviously, after Episode 41’s casual venture back into the sun-drenched avenues of Ibiza’s vibrant, underground house scene, this one goes back to our familiar stomping ground. ‘Tune Of The Episode’ for this outing is a rather epic little number called ‘Metamorphic’. And metamorphic is a pretty apt description of the episode as a whole, as we neatly segway our way through a myriad of styles in big room club music.

Like recent episodes, there is a bit of an aggressive ‘Markus Schulz’ vibe going on in the middle section, courtesy of tunes like Stuart McLellan’s Computer Says NO on Detox, an Raneem-Aaron Camz collab on Interstate and the deliciously fiendish Pariah on Coldharbour Red.

What makes this one fresh and different is the introduction of some sounds that have been missing for a while on TPHP – and this is 100% deliberate. We toast the dying embers of another summer gone with the softer, blissful sounds of Chicane, BT and Soundprank and, going in the other direction, we bring back some heavier, electro sounds in the shape of Norin & Rad’s DeVas, Yves V & Felguk’s big room monster WOW and the dubstep touch in Anzo’s Corridors. The aforementioned Metamorphic fuses that electro edge with a Craig Connelly-esque riff that just completes the job. First class!

Our more uplifting phase is a bit shorter this week, but there’s still room for two Solarstone numbers – the UK-based maestro teaming up with Giuseppe Ottaviani and Aly & Fila on Falcons and Fireisland respectively. There’s not been anything from either of those 3 on the podcast for a while so they make welcome returns. And, not forgetting, yet another top remix from Suncatcher who can do no wrong at the moment.

Two oldies this week – Not sure why, but I suddenly had a pining to play Armin Van Buuren’s 2005 single, Shivers, and, sure enough, it fits rather nicely into this set. Playing it back, I’d completely forgotten that the vocalist is Susana who, of course, is now a household name. Armin at his brilliant best.

We end on a really personal record for me, a record that has been a definitive favourite of mine for as long as I can remember. The name Michael Woods is one known to most today as a highly respected producer of electro and house. Back in 2002, he was producing trance belters like Heaven Sent. It’s a record that sums up everything that was great about the club music of that era. Those soft pads before the main riff drops are just, well... heaven. It was the only record Woods released under this M1 alias and, as was fairly customary at the time, it was a tune that had a vocal pointless squeezed on the top to make it more accessible. The dub original avoids all that pointlessness and keeps it real!

THE PHIL-HARMONIC PODCAST EPISODE 42

1. Chicane & Ferry Corsten - One Thousand Suns (Disco Citizens Remix) [Modena Records]

2. BT & Arty feat. Nadia Ali - Must Be The Love [Armind]

3. Velvetine - The Great Divide (Soundprank Remix) [Anjunabeats]

4. Anzo - Corridors [Burn The Fire]

5. Yves V & Felguk - Wow [Smash The House]

6. Norin & Rad - DeVas [Anjunabeats]

7. Orjan Nilsen - PhireWorX [Armind]

8. Chris Goy - Metamorphic [Lange Recordings] <<<(Phil's Tune Of The Episode)>>>

9. Raneem & Aaron Camz - Generator [Interstate Recordings]

10. Ben Gold - Where Life Takes Us [Garuda]

11. Arnej - Pariah [Coldharbour Red]

12. Stuart McLellan - Computer Says NO [Detox Records]

13. Markus Schulz & Mr. Pit - Push The Button [Armada]

14. Bobina - The Space Track (Andrew Rayel Stadium Remix) [Magik Muzik]

15. Exostate - Easily I Fell [Enhanced Recordings]

16. Stoneface & Terminal - Green Velvet [A State Of Trance]

17. Solarstone with Giuseppe Ottaviani - Falcons (Giuseppe Ottaviani OnAir Mix) [Black Hole Recordings]

18. Armin Van Buuren feat. Susana - Shivers (Rising Star Mix) [Nebula]

19. Type 41 - Night Rush [Critical State]

20. Solarstone with Aly & Fila - Fireisland (Aly & Fila Uplifting Mix) [Black Hole Recordings]

21. Tritonal feat. Cristina Soto - Still With Me (Suncatcher Remix) [Enhanced Recordings]

22. M1 - Heaven Sent (Michael Woods Club Mix) [Inferno]

That’s all, kids. In 2 weeks I will have a report from WHP and yet more Phil-Harmonic magic. Until then!

The Phil-Harmonic Podcast Episode 41

THE IBIZA SPECIALS 2012 PART 5 - SPOTLIGHT ON IBIZA PART 2 - THE SEASON CLOSER

Hola amigos.

First up, you’ll notice the change of colour scheme this week. You may also notice some general spring cleaning of the blog that I’ve been doing this weekend. Meanwhile, I’m slowly creating a secondary blog in the hope of building a brand new RSS feed. All in the interests of freshening things up and clearing away some of the growing mess created by the coming and going of episodes.

If the Phil-Harmonic Podcast has ever had a mission statement it's been to keep its audience, whatever the size, on its collective toes. As much as it helps to have a formula and a degree of familiarity, there's nothing worse than predictability. The last 3 episodes have been very clear in their trance theme, so we're long overdue something unexpected.

And what could be more unexpected this week than a final return, at the very start of autumn, to our Ibiza Specials?

At the start of the year I never envisaged doing 5 Ibiza Specials. If anything, a disproportionate amount of time and effort has gone into these episodes this year, carried on by the euphoria of another trip to clubbing paradise and by a flurry of creative DJing ideas.

But such was the unanticipated buzz created by Spotlight On Ibiza earlier in the summer, my hand has been forced. For once, I'm back by popular demand. When the idea of doing a follow up was suggested to me, at least attempting to repeat the feat seemed like a fitting way to bring down the curtain on another hectic Ibiza season on behalf of my fellow Spotlighters. We are now in October and that curtain falls.

For those that don't remember Spotlight On Ibiza, the basic premise was to pull together the best track suggestions from a music thread on the Ibiza-Spotlight forum - the 'Tracks For 2012' thread. Since posting the original set, the suggestions have continued to roll in and I had plenty of excellent deep house and techno ideas to mold into a new set. And, given that I was pulling from this thread in August and September rather than May, the selections in this week's set are probably marginally more representative of people's holidays - even my own.

I knew starting out with this follow up that I had a real challenge on my hands. I said numerous times after doing Part 1 that this kind of slower house and techno - this traditional Ibizan music - had dragged me right out of my comfort zone. Moreover, by mixing the last one so well I'd set the bar uncomfortably and unnervingly high for myself.

But part of the battle with this fresh attempt was convincing myself that even if it were half as good, earning half the plaudits, it was absolutely worth doing. After all, this episode forms one half of the 2 most difficult DJing challenges I've ever set myself and is as much a marker of how far I've come as how far I've got to go. The road still stretches into the distance, but with a sunrise behind it.

Even with my limited knowledge of this music, there are a number of tunes that stand out in terms of the damage they've done on the White Isle this summer. They are HNQO’s Point Of View on Hot Creations, a label generating a lot of hype and fronting big things at DC10 this season courtesy of Jamie Jones, Flashmob - Need In Me on Defected, which quite frankly has been inescapable this summer and, a tune that contains a lot of Ibiza memories from Pacha for me personally, Federico Scavo’s I Do. ‘Tune Of The Episode’ is the incredible By Your Side by Adriatique.

There's no doubt this effort isn't quite as well mixed as the last, but it's a reasonably solid set with a tracklist that subtly blends some highly contrasting styles of Ibiza music - some stripped down beats, some uplifting 80's synths and some dark, progressive moods. There are some very interesting percussive combinations along the way.

Undoubtedly, it's a set completely untouched by the noisy, big room sounds that are rampaging around clubs worldwide at the moment. Normally, I'm a big pusher of these big room sounds - in fact, as a trance DJ they're exactly what I'm about. But I'm hugely appreciative of this more soulful side now too. Firstly because it shows the world that club music has more than one face, more than one vision, more than one cultural soul. But, more importantly, because this music hasn't lost touch with where dance music began all those years ago. Not to mention, it’s Ibiza's very essence as well.

There is little doubt in my mind that one of the key reasons for me becoming a die-hard trance fan is that, born in 1987, I've been around on this planet for most, if not all, of trance music's existence as an accepted genre. Like a lot of trance fans my age, my life has almost progressed in a weird parallel to it - a freakish chronologically linearage. I've feed my own ideals into it; almost built my own reality out if it. It’s been like a transcendental sibling, a brother, even a twin. As a genre, it couldn't really be any more of my time or era. With house music, things are slightly different.

But one part of maturing in life is fully appreciating that a world existed before you arrived on it, a world that was different to but wholly responsible for the one you exist in today. Not just appreciating, but in actually becoming receptive to, even excited by, that fact. In a very subtle way, musically, this has been part of my own journey, of which Ibiza is inextricably a part.

It seems like an obvious point, but this musical phenomenon that drives me on every day predates me by some significant years, emerging from a world and era that I can only read and hear stories about - like some timeless folk tale. It was a cultural phenomenon at the time too in its infancy for my parents to appreciate; too altered in form and variation by my ‘coming of age’ for me to have really been a part of – sandwiched elusively between two generations of cultural awareness.

The music in this set is that cultural Prime Mover's closest living ancestor. For that reason alone, the occasional foray into this brand of dance music not only seems right but wholly proper.

And on that very poignant note, I give you The Season Closer 2012...

 

THE PHIL-HARMONIC PODCAST EPISODE 042 - THE IBIZA SPECIALS 2012 PART 5

SPOTLIGHT ON IBIZA PART 2 - THE SEASON CLOSER 

1. Finnebassen - Touching Me [Noir Music]

2. Steve Bug - Those Grooves [Poker Flat Recordings]

3. Ben Pearce – What I Might Do [MTA Records]

4. Guy Gerber - One Day In May [Visionquest]

5. Flashmob - Need In Me [Defected]

6. Hot Since 82 - Knee Deep In Louise [Moda Black]

7. Martin Roth - Beautiful Life [Anjunadeep]

8. Lee Curtiss - Body Twitch [Visionquest]

9. Adriatique - By Your Side [Diynamic Music] <<<(Phil’s Tune Of The Episode)>>>

10. HNQO - Point Of View [Hot Creations]

11. &ME - Matters [Saved Records]

12. DJ W!LD - Voyage [Rekids]

13. Monte - True [Jeudi Records]

14. Tom Budden - Patball Elite [Alive Recordings]

15. Samu.l - Innocent [One Records]

16. Bushwacka! - West Side (Christian Smith & Wehbba Remix) [Tronic]

17. Federico Scavo - I Do (Original Club Mix) [Toolroom Records]

18. Alex Kenji & NDKj feat. Marga Sol - Not That Kind Of Girl (Mike Vale Remix) [Hotfingers]

19. Mario Ochoa - Mr. Boom [Avenue Recordings]

20. Jay Lumen - Chicago Milkshake [Big Love Music]

21. ENCORE: Todd Terje - Inspector Norse [Smalltown Supersound]


And I promise – that’s the Ibiza Specials done for 2012. Haven’t even decided whether I will do them at all in 2013… but they will be back some day. Till next time! Viva Ibiza!